Images

After nearly 5 years of ownership and many flights, I lost my Flyzone DH-2 Beaver to the RC demons on Wed 11-27-2018.

I was using a new Spektrum DX8 Gen 2 transmitter, with the same receiver that had always worked on my DX7s transmitter. Don't know what went wrong, but it acted like it went out of radio range and went into failsafe mode.

The fuselage is too damaged to repair. Firewall is broken, and it was molded inside the foam when the fuselage was made, so no easy way to replace it. The landing gear supports are twisted and broken out. The landing gear plate on one of them is all bent out of shape. The motor mount is bent severely. I just decided to pull the electronics out and call it a done deal.

I bought a 1400mm P-40B made by FMS and it arrived about a week ago. I started assembling it a few days ago and did some detail painting to it.

It has many plastic pieces that are molded in color but they do not match the paint. I wanted all the pieces to match so I took the elevator assembly to Lowes to have the three colors computer matched and get sample bottles of each paint. As it turns out only the green was a perfect match. The gray was too dark and the olive drab was just totally wrong.

At first I painted the plastic pieces with the gray paint, but it really bugged me that they were darker. So I ended up mixing some paint myself to get a better match. Not perfect but a lot closer. I also tried to mix up some of the olive drab brown but could not get a match. However I came up with something better than the maroon looking stuff that Lowes made.

I also had Lowes make up some zinc chromate green for me and I used that inside the wheel wells and flaps.

I painted the gear doors and inside the wheel wells. I painted over the clear plastic surrounds on the navigation lights. I painted the nav light lens' on the vertical fin. I painted the pitot tube. I painted the exhaust stacks. I airbrushed some exhaust smoke stains on the side of the fuselage. I painted the spinner. I softened the hard edge of the green camo around the cockpit and canopy. I painted the machine gun barrels flat black. And I made decals for the hub caps.

Mine broke down 10 years ago. I let someone drive it and they were hammering on it pretty good. I thought the diff had blown. I parked it in my shed and left it. Decided a couple of weeks ago to try to get it going again. Turned out one of the motor mount brackets sheared in half. I made a new bracket. Cleaned it up and was ready to try to start it. Pressed on the primer bulb and it crumbled from old age. I found new carbs on eBay for $15 shipped. Got the carb installed and she fired right up. But my linkage was catywampus at first. Got it adjusted and drove a couple laps in the backyard.

My Beagle likes to chase RC cars. She has never seen such a large RC car as this! lol......Continue Reading

This little park flyer is very nicely molded. It is outstanding in its scale outline. It is very quick to assemble too.

I did the maiden flight on a windy day, and it did get blown about a little but it was still fun to fly. I think it would be great in an actual small park, surrounded by trees that act as a wind break....Continue Reading

Just finished assembling my Stinson. I did the flap mod first before anything else. With the reputation Parkzone has, I am a little annoyed by some of the things on this model. Like the wing strut attachments are extremely cheesy. The servo wires are to short, and the battery connector is WAY too short. I will have to make a permanent extension for the battery connector as it is nearly impossible to get a battery plugged in and I do not want to damage the model trying repeatedly.

Other than that, the model looks very attractive in its livery and I am looking forward to the maiden flight. ...Continue Reading

I started assembling my Fly Baby today. This is made by Taft Hobby. It was also sold by Hobby King in a blue color scheme. It's a nice looking scale model.

There were a few minor mistakes from the factory. The first one was the hardware. It was supposed to come with several different lengths and sizes of sheet metal screws, but they were all identical. So I drilled and tapped for 3mm screws and used them instead. Another issue was the rudder control horn. It was not glued in properly and came out as soon as it was touched. I re-glued it. And then there is a large plastic piece that supports the landing gear. It also connects the two wing halves. It broke off as soon as I was working around it, again for lack of glue. It had only one little dot of glue for a rather large piece.

Other than those issues the assembly is pretty easy and fast. I still have to string the wire bracing and install my Rx. ...Continue Reading

I bought this XTM Baja 4WD truck in February 2003. I changed the wheels to some rally types and added a Subaru body, then put it on a shelf for display. It has never been used. No fuel, no batteries in the radio, even the antenna was not unraveled, lol.

Well, the tires are now flat spotted but I think they will get round again. I have made adjustments to the suspension and steering because from the factory it was off, glued the tires, checked all screws for tightness, and adjusted the shock pre-load.

I will now balance the wheels/tires, and then the engine will start its break-in process.

I have decided to stay old skool with the stock Hitec 75Mhz radio system.

It was cool going through the original box, and manuals, and time warping back 15 years to when this was a current production vehicle sold by Hobby Shack.

It's just another one of my collection of glow fuel engine powered cars and trucks I have and want to get running.

I have a T-Maxx that I got around 2003. It has been sitting unused for around 12 years. I decided to get it going again recently.

I oiled up the engine and carb and got everything loose. I installed a FlySKy 2.4Ghz radio into it. I added some fuel and the engine fired up pretty easily. When I tried driving it, it did not have forward gear, only reverse. So I drove it around my backyard backwards, to use up the fuel! But before it was completely used up, it also lost reverse gear. The trans was gone!

I took the trans apart and found a stripped gear. I ordered new parts and got it rebuilt and then went for a drive in my backyard. Only thing was it was 100°F outside and so the engine kept overheating and stalling. Still, it was fun to run it again and I will take it to an open area in cooler air to give it a good run.

Images

I have a vintage 2004 Duratrax Delphi Indy racer. It is really cool looking. It has an all carbon fiber chassis. 2WD with a differential. Aluminum oil shock.

But, it was impossible to drive! Squirrely with a capital S! First, the torque would cause it to spin out constantly. Second, the stock tires looked great but were completely worthless. No grip at all, like driving on ice.

I upgraded to the foam racing tires that were available at the time. Made no difference, really. Whenever I tried to go full throttle in a straight line, even from a rolling start, it would spin out. So I gave up, and put it on the shelf.

Recently, the advent of RC cars with gyros got me thinking. I bought a heli heading gyro and installed it into this car. I took it to the street, started to roll and then pinned the throttle. It went straight as an arrow! I was stunned!

Up and down the street, back and forth at full throttle it tracked straight. It was awesome. This was on the foam tires. I switched to the stock tires, and it was still squirrely , but if I kept it straight for a while I could pin it and then the gyro kept it going straight at full throttle. But as soon as I left off the throttle it would spin out. Even the gyro was struggling with the stock worthless tires.

I store my lipo batteries in my BBQ. I figure if it can hold hot coals, it could contain a lipo fire.

Anyway, it has been a mess and unorganized for too long. And many I knew were no good anymore. Some dated back to 2009. So I went through them today, picked out several that I did not want to keep and took them to the recycling center.

I have been getting my Paulistinha P-56 airplane going again. The engine needed some attention. I rebuilt the carb with new o-rings and I have run the engine some more on the test bench, and it is starting to settle in and get a better idle. I also installed an on-board glow plug driver to help with keeping an reliable idle.

In addition to the P-56, I have gotten a Toledo Special that I obtained second hand, into flying condition. It needed a new Rx and battery, and some re-arranging of various components. I also have installed a 3-axis gyro in this model, just to try it out. I have never flown a plane with a gyro before so it will be interesting. I did put it on a switch though, so I can turn it off if I want to.